in could formulate was a
question without words. His arms seemed strangely weary ... as if he had
been carrying a dead weight.

In a very few minutes Judith reappeared.

"I've found it," she said, with an air of imparting information for
which he had long been waiting. "I'm going over at once."

"You've found it?" he echoed stupidly. "You're going over? What? Where?
I don't understand."

"Brent Good's," she said quietly, already pulling on her gloves. "He's
ill."

"Oh." The words were enough to galvanise Imrie into action. He jumped to
his feet, his jaw set. "I shall go with you," he said. It was not
uttered as a threat, nor yet as an offer. Judith divined it for what it
was--a statement of fact. But she tried to protest.

"It's not at all necessary."

"I shall go with you," he repeated, with an air of believing that no
human power could possibly prevent it. And Judith, with a recollection
of his recent amazing outburst of masterfulness, said no more.

He seized her hand when they were in the automobile, and she made no
effort to withdraw it. But something told him that she was not even
conscious that he held it. After a little, he released it. She had gone
very far away from him again, he thought sadly, as he watched her
staring wide-eyed out into the darkness. It seemed clear enough now
where she had gone, but there was no less grief at the going, for the
knowledge. The swing of Imrie's hope had reached its amplitude in those
brief moments he had held her unresisting in his arms. It reached its
lowest ebb on that silent ride to the home of his rival.

He noticed, as he turned also to stare out of the window, that
boulevards were giving place to meaner streets. Car-tracks were more in
evidence, and people, particularly children, more numerous. From the
increased jolting, the change in the character of the pavements was
obvious. For a little while they rolled down a very brightly lighted
thoroughfare, lined with shops and moving-picture theatres, and crowded
with vehicles and humanity. Then they turned into a street which was
hardly lighted at all, lined with tall, narrow buildings, entered
through steep, high porches. A few minutes later the car stopped.

Imrie followed Judith up the precipitous ascent to one of the tall,
narrow buildings. Vaguely unpleasant odours assailed him even before the
front door was opened.

"I would like to see Mr. Good," said Judith to the round-shouldered
slattern who answered